


don't delete the kisses

by flwrpotts



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:21:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28743159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flwrpotts/pseuds/flwrpotts
Summary: It’s so good and so easy that Alex hates himself for not knowing that it would somehow fall apart.He and Jo both got Sunday off, one of the rare days when their schedules line up by some form of magic or a great resident, when they can sleep in and drink lukewarm coffee and watch reruns of sitcoms on cable, the loose and familiar chatter of people downstairs. The miracle of sleeping in past nine in the morning is almost comparable to the miracle of Jo beside him, wearing one of his faded t-shirts that hangs past her thighs and sleeping with her mouth a little open.He pokes Jo in the cheek, and her face crinkles, eyes blinking open to look at him, instantly affectionate. “It’s too early,” she complains, hair a mess, and the love he feels for her is an ache in his chest, as urgent and necessary as an electronic jolt, the paddles charged all the way up.“Can’t help it,” he says, one side of his mouth lifting. “You were snoring.”Jo makes a tiny, offended sound. “I was not!”“Okay, then,” he concedes. “Maybe I just wanted you to be awake.”
Relationships: Alex Karev/Jo Wilson
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	don't delete the kisses

**Author's Note:**

> hello this is my first time writing for greys!!! prompt from THE best greys fan/friend and the inspiration randomly struck. 
> 
> tw for panic attacks and discussions of ptsd and sexual violence!!!! pls be safe xoxo

part 1. 

It’s so good and so easy that Alex hates himself for not knowing that it would somehow fall apart. 

He and Jo both got Sunday off, one of the rare days when their schedules line up by some form of magic or a great resident, when they can sleep in and drink lukewarm coffee and watch reruns of sitcoms on cable, the loose and familiar chatter of people downstairs. The miracle of sleeping in past nine in the morning is almost comparable to the miracle of Jo beside him, wearing one of his faded t-shirts that hangs past her thighs and sleeping with her mouth a little open. 

He pokes Jo in the cheek, and her face crinkles, eyes blinking open to look at him, instantly affectionate. “It’s too early,” she complains, hair a mess, and the love he feels for her is an ache in his chest, as urgent and necessary as an electronic jolt, the paddles charged all the way up. 

“Can’t help it,” he says, one side of his mouth lifting. “You were snoring.”

Jo makes a tiny, offended sound. “I was not!”

“Okay, then,” he concedes. “Maybe I just wanted you to be awake.”

Jo’s smile breaks over her face. “Now, that’s much more flattering, Karev,” she advises, and he laughs sudden and surprised. He leans down to kiss her, and Jo’s hand comes to nest in the collar of his shirt, her hair running silky through his fingers. 

“Any plans today, Dr. Wilson?” he asks her, already pulling at the hem of her t-shirt, and he can feel Jo laugh against his mouth before he hears it. 

“Mh, I’ve got some ideas, Dr. Karev,” she says, and then pulls the college wrestling shirt up over her head, revealing miles and miles of bare skin. He groans, half a joke, tipping his head back, and Jo swats at his arm, a blush rising in her cheeks. 

He maneuvers them against the mattress, Jo’s hair spreading across the pillow in waves. “Come here,” she demands, and he obliges, leaning down to kiss her while clumsily shoving his pajama pants down around his ankles. 

“You’re beautiful,” he tells her, just because it’s a fact, because she’s so much more than, because he’s in love with the way she stirs her coffee with her pen when she thinks no one’s looking and triple checks her patients and laces her hand through his when they’re leaving a double shift. He’s in love with her brain and her fucked up humor and the way she drinks him under the table every time. In love with the narrow slant of her handwriting, the dip of her ankle, all of it. 

“Stop talking,” she says, impatient, and so he shifts everything he cannot say into hiking her leg up around his waist, pressing sloppy kisses down her cheek and along her hairline. He slides a finger into her, slow, and Jo gasps against him, the faint babble of voices out in the hallway. He focuses in on it like he would surgery, the tiny sounds she makes guiding his movements. 

Jo sucks a mark into his neck that Meredith is going to give him shit about later, but he can’t bring himself to care, not when her nails sink into his shoulder and she moans, eyes sliding shut. He moves against her, lost in the simple ease of it, the lack of complication so good it comes up against the edge of being terrifying. “Fuck,” he sighs into her neck, and Jo’s legs tighten against him, one heel pressed into the small of his back. 

There’s laughter outside the doorway, distant voices, and Jo moans, loud and unnoticing. The pitch of laughter changes, becomes more knowing, and he presses a hand against her mouth, a halfhearted bid to make them more quiet. Jo’s eyes fly open, a sudden and terrified green, and her panic hits him like freezing water, a perfect transference. 

She gasps, messy and scared, nothing like before, harshly shoving him off of her before he even knows what’s happening. He stumbles off the edge of the bed, the shock and confusion ricocheting in his chest. 

“Jo?” he asks, not understanding, and her hands fly to her chest, yanking the sheets up around her. Her chest moves up and down rapidly, hands fisted so tightly in the sheets that her knuckles blanch white. 

“Get out!” she shrieks at him, her voice very unlike herself, the anger a paper thin covering of fear. The self loathing hits Alex before he even understands the source of it, he’s scrambling for his pants, tripping as he tries to leave. “Fuck, I’m so sorry,” he says, voice rough, though he doesn’t yet understand for what. 

“Get the fuck out!” Jo yells, tears welling in her eyes, voice cracking in the middle with a sob, and he does, shutting the door behind him, shuddering through his own panicked gasp. 

“Alex, what?” Meredith asks, standing with a basket of clean laundry against her hip, turning to look at him with Amelia right behind her, blinking her freaky blue eyes at him. Maggie comes up the hall behind them, no doubt investigating what all the commotion is. 

“What just happened? That sounded like bad yelling, not good yelling.” Amelia says, looking more confused than concerned. 

Alex presses a hand against the back of his head, his heart beating loud and insistent in his ears, so scared and ashamed he can’t think of a single thing to say. 

“Jo- we were- and she- I don’t know. I put my hand on her mouth, and she totally freaked out. I don’t know-”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Meredith says, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder, until he shrugs away from the contact. 

“Can you just- can you make sure she’s okay? Please?” he asks, voice pinched because he feels like he’s going to burst into god damned tears any second. He covers his eyes with his hands for a moment, pressing until he sees stars, trying to think. 

“Okay,” Meredith says, her features setting into a familiar sort of determination. “Why don’t you go downstairs for a minute? Give her a little bit of space.”

He nods, lost enough to accept any sort of direction, and Amelia hooks an insistent arm in his, shepherding him towards the stairs. “Come on, cowboy. Why don’t we get you a glass of water?”   
  


He stops before he hits the first step, turning back towards Meredith. “Just tell her I’m sorry?” he asks Meredith, and she nods at him, full of understanding, that same strange twin quality that they’ve always had, the unspoken language of misfits and fuck ups. 

He lets Amelia usher him down the stairs, catching faintly the sound of Meredith knocking at the door and Jo’s teary voice. 

part 2. 

Jo’s first rational thought once she isn’t drowning in the waves of her own panic is that this must be some sort of divine punishment. She had been so happy, so relaxed, so safe that of course her fucked up brain had to puncture it, had to shatter the illusion before she could begin to think that it was permanent. 

It’s just that it had all been so good, fond and comfortable like coming home, and then Alex’s calloused palm against her mouth had been like a sudden jolt, a vicious reminder of all the things the world had done to her and all that it could continue to do. It was Paul and it was the string of all the other terrible men, who had hurt her because she asked, because if she initiated it the whole thing was still in her control, who had hurt her before she asked. The primal fear had gripped her before she even had a chance to process it, biological mechanisms whipping her synapses into a frenzy to get her out, to avoid the histories of pain.

White had flashed behind her eyes, a flurry of synapses, dissolving the warm and messy bedroom and Alex’s crooked smile and her own simple, stupid happiness, a sudden and sickening plunge into the abyss of memory. “Get out!” she had howled, voice bloody and mangled, and Alex’s expression had been nearly as sickening as her own terror. 

_ What the fuck is wrong with you  _ she thinks to herself, sudden and vicious, as Alex’s stumbles out through the door, his inside out pants almost enough to break her heart. There’s the faint sound of conversation outside the door, voices rising in concern, and Jo draws the sheets tightly around her naked body, the shame and self-loathing rising in her as real as fever or illness. She wills her heart to stop racing, sinking her teeth into the meat of her palm hard enough to leave indentations, the pain a harsh and clear reminder of reality. 

She remembers suddenly the old joke about all of Alex’s girlfriends going crazy, repeated in hushed voices around the hospital in tones of politely horrified amusement. Jo wants to leap out of the bed, to run downstairs and explain it to him, to shake him by the shoulders and tell him that it isn’t his fault,  this mite that sits in the back of her brain, a spot of dark she imagines amongst the healthy pink sponge, something other doctors would wince at if they could see it across an MRI scan. 

There’s a quick knock at the door, three sharp raps, tugging her out of her rapidly spiraling thoughts. “Come in,” she says, trying and failing to steady her voice, swiping quickly at the tears on her face. 

The door opens and Meredith is on the other side, wearing an expression of careful, studied neutrality. “Is it alright if I come in?” she asks, and Jo nods, sweeps out a hand in invitation. Meredith perches carefully on the edge of the bed, watching her. 

“Are you okay?” she asks after a beat of silence. 

“I’m fine,” Jo says, shaking her head, trying to salvage the situation, not reveal more of herself than she already has. “I’m so sorry for freaking you guys out, it’s so embarrassing, I just-” 

“It’s not embarrassing, Jo,” Meredith says, her voice quiet but firm, leaving no room for argument. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.” Jo finally looks at her, at her straight posture and clinical gaze, like she’s a patient being taken up to psych. 

“Of course I do!” she says, in a sudden burst of anger, at the weak attempt to dilute the nature of her meltdown. “Look, I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but I always fuck things up, okay? It’s what I do.” If Meredith is surprised by the rush of bitterness she doesn’t show it. 

“Alex used to say the same thing,” she replies easily, knowing the words will hit precisely. “Do you think he’s a fuck up?”

“Of course not,” Jo says, offended by the insinuation. “He’s perfect.”

Meredith actually laughs at that, a burst of dry amusement. “We both know that’s not true,” she says. “But he’s a good person who’s had bad things happen to him and still made the best of it. You’re similar that way. And he loves you.”

The door creaks open again, and it’s Amelia, a nervous, volatile smile flickering on her face. “Mind if I crash this party?” she jokes dryly. Jo nods, mute, and Amelia easily crosses the threshold, handing her a glass of room temperature water. 

“Thanks,” Jo says quietly, taking a long sip and putting it down on the nightstand. 

“I hate being this way,” Jo confesses. It’s too much honesty, but she knows enough of Meredith and Amelia to understand the dark shadows of their own pasts, the long trails of people they used to be. “Every single time I think I’m past this shit, I end up back at square one. What if- what if I’m like this forever?”

“That’s impossible,” Amelia says, her terrifyingly blue eyes resolute. “Look at what you’ve done. The life that you’ve built for yourself. You have a job and a home and people who love you. Maybe you can’t go back to the undamaged person that you were before whatever it was. But you can go forward, Jo. You  _ are  _ going forward.” 

Jo blinks at her surprised tears, the overwhelming comfort of acceptance. Meredith places a hand on top of hers, squeezing tightly, and Jo leans her head against her shoulder before she can think better of it. 

“You’re not coping badly,” Meredith says. “Nobody here is going to judge you. I ran away to the other side of the country because I didn’t know how to deal with it.” 

“I was high for three solid years,” Amelia adds, a sardonic grin on her face. 

“Not a competition,” Meredith chastises sarcastically, and Amelia rolls her eyes but smiles all the same. 

“Thank you guys,” Jo says, voice soft. “Really.” 

“Alex loves you more than he’s ever loved anyone,” Meredith says, and Jo hides her surprise. She’s looked through all of the scrapbooks and old photos that are hidden away in the attic, she knows how close Meredith and Izzy once were, the snapshots of shared holidays and late night beers and internship camaraderie. “You can talk to him, about whatever it is. And you can talk to us, anytime.”

“Trust me, if anyone understands dark and twisty, it’s us,” Amelia adds. “We are seriously the last people to judge.” 

“I better go talk to Alex,” she says, rubbing her hands once more under her eyes to get rid of the residual tears and old makeup. 

“Maybe put some clothes on first,” Meredith advises, and Jo huffs a surprised laugh. 

“Well, it  _ is  _ Alex,” Amelia adds. “So maybe not.”

“Not the time.”

“No, definitely the time,” Jo says, and her smile is as real as the fear. 

part 3. 

Meredith is finally folding the previously abandoned laundry, carefully folding onesies as she tries to work through her thoughts. The sensation of missing Derek is as constant as a chronic pain, an underlying pulse low in her chest that never quite leaves, but is prone to sudden and acidic flare ups. 

She remembers her old complaining about Jo, bitching to Derek at the dinner table as she spooned applesauce into Zola’s tiny mouth.    
  
“I think you have more in common than you might think,” he had always said, and she wishes terribly that she could tell him that he was right, that maybe they are made up of the same stuff, after all. 

People leave but the love never does, just shifts and transforms into new places. She wouldn’t trade the makeshift family she’s found herself in, the loud conversations around the dinner table and shared understanding of old scars. 

Her stomach rumbles, protesting her skipped breakfast, and Meredith puts down the laundry in annoyance, making her way to the kitchen. She stops when she hears hushed voices in the kitchen, Alex’s low rumble and Jo's soft voice. 

She glances around the doorway, and sees Jo and Alex, talking quietly. Alex pours a glass of orange juice and gives it to Jo, his voice soft and conciliatory. Jo places the juice down on the counter, and wraps her arms around Alex’s middle, pressing her face into his chest. 

“I love you, you know?” she says to him, and he grins into the crown of her hair.    
  
“I know,” he says, earning a laugh. “I fucking love you, Jo Wilson.” 

Meredith leaves them there, in the morning sunlight, and smiles to the wall where no one will ever see. 

  
  



End file.
